Tuesday, June 21, 2005

Tuesday Afternoon

It's always nice to wake up and discover that "You have mail." Especially when it concerns friends.

My entries have been rather spotty lately because I have embarked upon what is, for me, an ambitious and (I hope) productive undertaking. Our IRA is invested in mutual funds; one of them tracks the Russell 2000 index. It contains roughly 3500 stocks. The last annual report that we received did not list every stock as we expected (apparently fund companies can issue abbreviated lists now.) I went to the trouble of downloading and printing the complete list from the fund's website and am now in the process of alphabetizing the list, a tedious and time-consuming procedure, but one that I am ideally suited for (I have a high tolerance for tedium and I can sit on my ass for hours on end.)

However, it does eat up time that I normally devote to other pursuits, so my journal entries may suffer for a bit.

You may ask yourself, what kind of moron would go to all that trouble, and why? Well, me. My reason for doing so is that I like to set up and run fantasy funds to determine if I possess a flair for that sort of thing, and this particular fund contains a myriad of small-caps that I am only now learning exist. It represents a fine database from which to begin research.

This is boring even me, so I'll wrap it up.

Peregrine update: All chicks have ended up on the walkway, although Esperanza resisted leaving the nest for 3 full days after the others had fallen. She looked awfully lonely. From the few glimpses one can get, the chicks are exercising their wings and within a week should be able to take short flights. This is where things get dicey. Last year a chick had to be extracted from the inside of one of Kodak's smokestacks, and one landed on the sidewalk in front of the building and mingled with the pedestrians. The best source of news is the discussion board on Kodak's website.

(Aside to Albert: I have, on occasion, indicated that I believe implicitly in an afterlife. My mother died on the operating table in 1982 and was returned to life, lasting for another 10 years before she died for the final time. She never really talked about that experience, but that she experienced something was evident. For a year after she returned home, she had a faraway, wondering look in her eyes. She had always been a fully religious woman, and I think her belief was repaid. I suspect it was she who sent me a vision the night my father died, and I received it before I learned that he had died. I won't describe the vision, because it was personal to me and would mean nothing to you. It was a rather prosaic vision and putting it in cold print would only devalue it. It was enough, however, to convince me that we go on from here, that there is a further road to travel. We are meant to be more than we are.)